I stumbled across Views of a Crank a few weeks ago. It’s interesting and well reasoned; everything you won’t find here.
Here’s a quote to whet your appetite. This was just one of many pithy statements from which to choose:
“Government authority should be small enough that misuse of it by a monomaniacal nitwit would not matter.”
The site is now on my blogroll. Enjoy.
From time to time I’ve been tuning in (is that a dated phrase?) to “The Slingshot Guy”. For some reason I never mentioned this particular genius on my blog. Time to rectify my oversight!
Background: Basically he’s a very pleasant German guy who has a hobby of building and firing slingshots. Stand back when he does his stuff! We’re not talking Tom Sawyer with a rubber band.
Also, and this is key, he says the most delightful things. For example: “You know how much I like to weaponize Black and Decker so I built this…” Anyone who utters the phrase weaponize Black and Decker is a mountain of awesome!
He’s getting better and better. When I first watched him he was firing nine inch metal spikes. By now he’s up to wheeled artillery and various large and pointy projectiles that would drop an elephant. All with slingshot type propulsion. Huzzah!
If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse he’s your “go to” guy for homemade mayhem!
Video 1: Wheeled Artillery; just what you need when someone steals your parking spot. Money quote as he describes his newest creation: “it’s a little bit dramatic”.
Video 2: Shaka Zulu Assegai (steel pointed spear) firing crossbow. Just what you need for deer hunting.
P.S. Check out his other videos. His shoulder mounted chainsaw launcher should get your attention simply because the world is a better place now that such a thing exists!
There was nothing left to do but cut the tree and hope for good luck. I don’t have good luck. It just doesn’t happen that way for me. It is best to never assume good fortune and therefore I’m rarely disappointed when probability takes a dump on my psyche.
I decided to sharpen my chain. I hunched over the saw like I was performing something unnatural (those of you who’ve sharpened a saw in the field know what I’m talking about). Then I cranked away on the innocent teeth with a round file while muttering to myself as I worked. File file file… grumble… “‘shoulda’ been an accountant…”
Move to the next link. File file file…. mutter… “…accountants can’t drop a tree on their head…”
Mutter, curse. Move to next link. File file file. “…I could have learned to play the violin but no! I had to get all macho and play around with a frigging chainsaw. Firewood blows.”
I continued the pattern until I ran out of chain. I was running out of opportunities for procrastination. Finally, I gassed up the saw and suited up in all the protective gear I had.
Then I addressed the homeowner.
“If I drop this on the house…” I started.
“You won’t.” She responded. (For some reason I inspire confidence in people. This mystifies me.)
“Yeah, well if I do. You’re not gonna’ sue me?”
“I promise.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.”
“OK but if you sue me and I go broke I’m moving into your chicken coop and living there.” I threatened.
“He’ll do it. It’s not an idle threat.” Mrs. Curmudgeon chimed in.
I looked around the yard. Happy farmland critters mingled on the lawn.
“And if the tree lands on a duck or something?”
“You can cook it for dinner. Just do it!”
“I shoulda’ been a rodeo clown.” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Filled with foreboding I stomped off to address the tree.
————————————————
“OK tree. Nobody but you and me. Where’s that split? You gonna’ fall the way I want?” I muttered.
“Bleaugh. Narkdafs. Shlaugh.” The tree was clearly mental.
“You’re the most messed up tree I’ve seen in ages. Please fall properly.” I bargained.
“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.” The tree blathered.
“You’re nuts in iambic pentameter?” I fumed. Trees don’t read Shakespeare. Hell, most Americans can’t read Shakespeare. I was losing it.
The tree shuddered. A twig near the top shook loose and drifted down to earth. A warning shot across the bow. There’s a reason we call hanging branches “widowmakers”. I’d say I was getting jumpy but that bridge had already been crossed. The tree spoke again. “Since I’m bigger than a whale and leaning everywhere all at once; you’ve gotta ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?”
I didn’t feel lucky at all. Trees usually like me. When they quote Dirty Harry things are serious. I stomped back to the truck and coaxed Mrs. Curmudgeon out.
“Here’s my cell phone. Stick it in your pocket.” I shoved my archaic phone in her hands. “Stand here. I’m aiming for that weed over there. That’s the target. If that top moves… even a bit… you should see it from this angle. When it does, yell.”
“How do I yell?” She quavered.
“I dunno. Like you really want me to hear it.” I explained that a fraction of an inch at the base of the tree shows up as a large movement at the top. Also that I couldn’t see the top properly. Then I stomped back to the tree.
“You back for more? Wuss!” The tree greeted me.
I didn’t say a thing. I started the saw and immediately started cutting.
Those of you who don’t know directional felling probably assume it’s all muscles and work. In fact it’s as much an art as a science and muscular idiots don’t last long. For this particular tree I made the best wedge cut ever. I wanted it to be perfect. I was careful. I took my time. I tweaked and checked and made sure it was level and well aimed.
“Hey there. Let’s negotiate.” The tree was getting nervous. I was feeling more confident. Frankly I hadn’t been sure the whole thing wasn’t rotten. I’d wondered if it would implode and drop randomly. Instead it was solid.
The wedge was a thing of beauty.
Mrs. Curmudgeon, clutching the cell phone and looking worried, had no idea I would carve a wedge out first. She gasped when I popped out a monster block of wood. The homeowner had left. The chickens and ducks watched with interest. The pig cleared out.
The back cut went in smooth and level. I tapped a felling wedge (a simple piece of equipment meant for this purpose and not the block of wood I’d just removed) in the gap right behind the saw. I watched it like a hawk. Every fraction of an inch the gap would open a smidge. I’d adjust the wedge. The inclined plane is how a six foot monkey can overpower ten ton tree. Physics baby!
Within reason, the deeper the back cut the less “hinge” left. Less hinge means a faster falling tree; assuming everything is sound and you’ve judged the balance well. I decided to knock this tree down very gently.
I nipped the back cut deeper in millimeters instead of inches. Then I saw the wedge loosen. It was go time.
Generally I’d rip out a little more hinge. Not with this ugly mess.
I stepped back, flipped off the saw, and sauntered to Mrs. Curmudgeon. The tree was leaning ever so slightly. She’d just noticed. It was moving slower than molasses.
It was going just where I wanted! I breathed a sigh of relief.
Mrs. Curmudgeon, unaware that I could control speed as well as direction, was impressed. “That’s so cool!” She gushed.
The tree tilted over, degree by degree. Oh yeah! I was looking uber cool. I’d done everything spot on. Mrs. Curmudgeon was impressed. (It’s not easy to impress her.) I smiled. I was gonna’ get lucky tonight!
Then the tree stopped. Leaning a preposterous 50 degrees it ground to a halt and stayed there.
“I cockblock you!” Shouted the tree.
“Oh hell no!” I shouted; losing whatever ‘coolness’ I’d banked with my skillful work.
By now victory was assured. The tree had no options but to fall precisely where I wanted. I was through playing games. A duck waddled beneath the tree. Screw it! The duck would either get out out the way or meet with a BBQ and as for the *&*^$$ tree… “Die bastard!”
Firing up the saw in mid-stride, I snapped my faceshield down and in a flash I was attacking the remaining hingewood.
“You have no sense of humor…” the tree whined.
And then it was down. Whew.
Most trees are simple. A few are complex. A rare few quote Shakespeare and try to kill you. Imagine all the adventure I’d miss if I simply bought furnace fuel in the winter.
You’re thinking I gave up aren’t you. You should know better than that! I said a wise man would give up. I didn’t say I gave up!
I drove to a friend’s house. It was nearby and therefore a great excuse to procrastinate. On the way I calculated angles and turned over the problem in my head. Eventually I realized I’d passed my friend’s driveway and gone several miles too far. Who thought chainsaws and trees would become a mental game?
After my truck, the Little Pony Trailer, and I executed a laborious U-turn on a narrow road I pulled into my friend’s driveway. A party of ladies, including Mrs. Curmudgeon, had just finished butchering chickens. (Excellent timing on my part!)
Everyone was covered in gore (if you’ve never butchered chickens you have no idea!). Also Mrs. Curmudgeon had suffered a painful hornet sting. Good times.
To my surprise everyone was in high spirits. A job well done will do that! I was given a delicious iced tea and some snacks. You gotta’ hand it to women. If a bunch of guys had just finished butchering, the only refreshment would be a stale bag of chips and a case of lukewarm beer. Also, and this is key, they listened to my tale of woe about the killer tree that was going to decapitate me and destroy the house. I’m pretty sure they didn’t give a shit but they nodded politely and kept pushing food at me. If it had been a gathering of men everyone would have advice (all of it bad) and this would be followed by many tales of people who had been disemboweled, dismembered, or at the very least gotten hammered in the balls by a disagreeable trees. Once I was totally paranoid I would be kicked out the door with three beers in my stomach and orders to get the tree on the ground and quit whining like a little pussy.
Eventually the man of the house arrived and I begged to borrow some chains. Soon the “Pony Trailer” was laden with 50 pounds in chain. Then I took a spin in his new Bobcat. I’m pretty sure the closest a normal human being gets to personally owning a fighting robot is a tracked skid steer. It’s good to be alive. We amused ourselves driving it around and listening to the delightful churn of hydraulic awesomeness. (My old tractors are to his new skid steer as a skateboard is to an aircraft carrier.) Eventually I could delay no more.
I set out to deal with the tree with a heavy heart. I had a plan so things moved quickly. Soon I had two chains and a tow strap strung from my truck to my first problem; the blasted, leaning, still hooked to the top of the tree, exploded top.
The best way to damage a truck is to loan it to a friend. The second best way is to hook it to something immobile and slam the drivetrain around. Caution was in order. I inched the chain back, quailed, then inched forward and got out to survey the situation. Lather rinse repeat. Each time I made subtle progress. Each time the splits in the tree seemed more ominous. On the fourth iteration I got the top separated from the tree and inched it a couple feet back. No trucks were harmed in this process.
Meanwhile, farm animals (which are free range) gathered to observe my progress. I wound up unhooking the chain under the watchful eye of six chickens, a dog, two ducks, a goose, a pot bellied pig, and a very nervous Mrs. Curmudgeon who was clutching a cell phone and wondering how much life insurance I have.
With the preliminaries done, I moved the truck so far from the tree that it could have been filled with grenades and the truck would be safe, grabbed my saw, and started muttering about how I should have become a rodeo clown. I decided I needed another break…
Last year I met a maple that tried to kill me. It insulted me and managed to get entangled in everything in sight. I thought very carefully about every move and eventually prevailed. The tree became firewood. Yay team Curmudgeon! (Just for the record, cutting firewood is a perfectly reasonable hobby but it can make you dead. This is how it differs from other recreational activities; like bowling.)
Recently a friend called with another tree of malevolent nature. A tree top had blown out and the remainder of the tree was leaning ominously. Would I come over and administer the coup de grace? I, being the stupid macho idiot I am, thought “what’s the worst that can happen” and cruised over with my truck and trailer (which is now known as the Pony Trailer). Free firewood, huzzah!
When I got there my heart sank. The tree was not a small one. By “not small” I mean big and ugly. Yeah I know, everyone has a story about how they dropped a Sequoia using a penknife. In fact I’ve felled bigger trees too. I’m not looking to get into a pissing match. I’m just saying there was a lot more kinetic energy than I’d expected and none of it was lined up for an easy job.
Big doesn’t necessarily mean bad ass but this tree was just plain messed up. It was close enough to a house to hit it and big enough that it could crush through the roof and keep going until it hit the foundation. Just for fun there was a garage in the opposite direction and an outbuilding blocking another felling route. Did I mention the power lines? All in all I decided I had about 40 degrees out of 360 where it was safe to land and about 25 of those degrees were pretty risky.
Not only was the top blown out but it had been blown out in the past; possibly twice. Each time the tree had regrown and had put up chunks of its big heavy crown in ways that were both off center and unpredictable. Plus, and this filled me with foreboding, the tree was split. One split went about 1/3 the tree’s length starting at the top. Another older split went much farther, possibly most of the way to the ground.
For those of you who don’t know how felling a tree is done, let me explain that the sawyer (that’s me) uses the tree structure to control the tree’s own descent. Just like an evil banker, we remove solid support until the whole thing is irreparably out of balance and it comes crashing down; exactly where we want it to go. If we do it right we get to feel smug and superior; also like an evil banker.
Directional felling starts when the sawyer cuts some of the tree to put it off balance. That’s the wedge that gets removed first. Then he cuts the opposite side of the tree. That’s called the back cut. If he’s doing everything right the back of the tree is under immense tension because it’s holding up much of the tree’s mass. Once the back cut is deep enough the whole tree starts easing over. The sawyer, being both awesome and skilled, gets of out Dodge along his predetermined escape route and makes it look like a sashay in the park instead of a pell mell retreat from disaster. Traditionalist like me yell “timber” because it’s fun.
It can be done wrong. If the wedge is miscalculated the tree will sit back on the back cut and pinch the bar. The technical term for this is “screwed”. Sometimes the sawyer miscalculates the lean of the tree and mass overpowers the effect of the directional cut. The technical term for this is “royally screwed” or sometimes “dead”.
The important part is that the sawyer tries very hard to NOT sever all the wood because that’s his control surface. It becomes the “hinge wood” between the wedge that makes the tree want to fall over and the back cut that lets it go. If a sawyer severs ALL of the hinge wood he’s created a twenty ton, sixty foot high, reverse pinata. It’s going to hit something somewhere but without the hinge to guide the speed and direction of the fall… it’s a shot in the dark.
Which brings me back to those splits up and down the trunk. In effect the hinge wood was already severed so my control may or may not be hindered to a greater or lesser extent and I didn’t know how much and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. This tree was a grenade with the pin already pulled.
I sized it up for a long time. I had a 15 degree target zone. The tree was leaning in the general vicinity of the target zone but the top was so mangled and so far up that I couldn’t deduce where the weight really was pulling it. Just to turn a Rubics Cube into the Enigma Code about 1/4 of the top was blown out and leaning on the ground. It was large, heavy, reaching to and touching the ground, and still physically hooked to the the tree a little over 40 feet above my head.
Suppose I cut the tree and it started going precisely into the 15 degree “landing window”. Would it drag along the blown top? I doubted it. I thought the massive weight of the blown top would “hold it back”. If it did I’d be hosed. If a tree (or anything) starts falling in a certain direction and you hold it back (but not enough to keep it upright) strange things happen. It will necessarily swing to an unknown but often very significant degree. Thus, altering it’s decent either to the left or to the right in mid fall following whatever rule of physics happens to be in charge as momentum, inertia, mass, and bad luck all roll the dice.
In this case a shift “to the left” meant a crushed garage and “to the right” meant a kitchen shoved into the subbasement. A wise man thinks before he does something unwise; that’s how you know they’re wise. Duh!
I got back in my truck and left.
Recently I went to two rural country fairs. You can learn a lot about America at a county fair. Here, in no particular order, are random observations:
I expected to see herds of mutant whack jobs in the style of “People of WalMart”. You know what I’m talking about; fat ugly cretinous losers in overstretched fluorescent spandex screaming obscenities while stuffing their faces with deep fried everything. I had my camera ready. (Strictly for research of course. Certainly not to mock them on a blog. That would be bad.) Surprisingly, it didn’t happen. Yes, it was a cross section of rural Americans and of course, nobody was discussing Descartes or dressed like Gordon Gekko. Even so, very few looked or acted like weirdos. One lady wearing a crude Kid Rock T-shirt was all I could find and she wasn’t a big deal. The whole scene was rampant with normalcy.
To the woman who had a Kid Rock T-shirt that said “Let’s get shitfaced”. Really? I’m not shocked by a rude T-shirt but I’m shocked someone so lame would wear one. Once you reach a certain point in life it’s time to use the offensive T-shirts to wax the car. When you look like Florence Henderson from the Brady Bunch it’s time to give up with the “rebel yell” because you’re not fooling anyone. (I’ll bet she drives a minivan and has photos of grandkids in her purse.)
There were no teenage girls wearing pajamas at either venue. Thank God!
One fine woman had cutoff jeans and a halter top that would make a country song weep with joy. Thank God!
Everyone under a certain age apparently has something tattooed somewhere; in order to express their individuality. On the other hand, the trend of youths getting pierced until they look like they’ve been hit with shrapnel has finally run its course. There was a distinct lack of outlandishness. A time traveler could step out of 1950 into a rural fair in 2013 and recognize it as normal. Try that on a street corner in Manhattan.
Fairs are for children. All children were having the time of their life. Adults are there to fork over cash to the kids, eat food their doctor would disapprove of, and look at the farm critters. This is how it always has been and how it always shall be.
Despite what Al Sharpton would have you believe, all races and creeds share something in common; a universal love of fried stuff on a stick. Nor are rural hicks running rampant like the media and race baiters (such as our president) describe from their fevered imaginations. Everyone got along fine; because it’s a fair dammit! Interracial war didn’t break out in front of the ferris wheel and us unstable gun toting rural hicks didn’t accidentally burn down the cotton candy machine. People surrounded by hay bales and cowshit don’t get too serious about anything. Congress should aspire to such humility. (Exception for old ladies: see below.)
There is nothing cuter than a little kid showing her prized bunny.
They still give out awards for vegetables!
They give out prizes for kid’s Lego creations. I call bullshit.
Horse people (mostly kids I think) have a whole lot of gear per horse. Also, it’s flashy enough to suit Liberace. There must be an innate urge to outfit a horse with the equivalent of chrome mudflaps and ground effects lighting. Cows, sheep, chickens, goats, pigs, and poultry are apparently owned by more level headed people.
I take that back. Chickens get flashy too. Have you seen some of the chicken breeds? Most are just feathered sandwich meat manufacturing devices and some are “heritage breeds”. But a few are an argument against human manipulation of genetics. (My chickens don’t go to the fair. They go to the freezer.)
If you walk past a pen with baby lambs and don’t reach down to pet one you’re a monster.
The rides are almost certainty the very same machines I might have ridden long ago. Apparently fair rides last forever? Where is the new stuff? Did fair ride technology top out at the “Scrambler”? Is it a liability thing? One ride had murals of a futuristic far off time called “The Year 2000”. They play the same music as when they were new; regardless of what modern teenagers download to their MP3 player, the bumper cars still play Led Zeppelin.
Something about the smell of horse stalls and fried food makes $5 lemonade seem reasonable.
I have no idea what 4H represents but those kids keep their animals clean.
I like to see real agriculture carried on in all it’s dirt laden and commerce based glory. Pigs, chickens, cows, and various other edible creatures were auctioned, bought, sold, and traded. Many were scheduled for slaughter. Many of the same were the property (and profitable investments) of children. The pig barn at a rural fair supports more trade than a State University!
Several old ladies had one building for their own stuff. Competition was as fierce as it was cutthroat. I got the heck out of there! You don’t meddle with Gladys’ quilt or Florence’s preserves on fair day. They live for the fair. If you knock over a jar of jelly and cost someone a ribbon you might wind up sleeping with the fishes.
I really wish I could afford a Kubota. I’m just sayin.
Flyover country is still vibrant. Suck it LA!
Recently I went to two rural country fairs in two adjacent counties. Both fairs were similar in size but they were in very different venues. One was in a town that’s poor, very rural, and the county itself is sparsely populated. The other (only an hour’s drive away) was in a small “city” that’s far less poor, and the county’s population is about triple it’s neighbor. It was practically a controlled experiment!
I love being a rural hick! I’ve lived everywhere but I once wound up locked down in a city too long. It did me harm. Thankfully I bailed out from “the city composed entirely of debt” well before the inevitable (and obvious to anyone who isn’t Paul Krugman) real estate bubble popped.
Buying a homestead was my ticket to an anti-bullshit lifestyle. There I planted my flag and began a novice’s long journey of discovery about why my tractor wouldn’t work.
Every day I breathe deep of the inherent freedom. You can, if you try, dodge a certain amount of politics by staying away from people. While the East Coast is fretting about Big Gulps and the Left Coast is hosing up everything, I’m contentedly stacking firewood in flyover country. Flyover country is where reality still reigns. (The geographic rule of thumb isn’t foolproof. Fly over country is a swiss cheese remainder after each city predictably taxes itself into the ground to finance it’s lifestyle as a minimum security prison. Doubt me? I mow my lawn with a tractor and have a shooting range on my yard. Try that in any city anywhere. In fact, if you seek freedom you’re more likely to find it in the Gulag than Detroit. Nor is it wise to hunker down in tax free and gun loving Chicago.)
Being free is a lot of work. Two steps forward and one step back. After several years progress has been made: chickens peck at the lawn, I can usually keep the driveway plowed, the woodshed is full, etc…
Every journey is a matter of steps. How would I know I’ve fully made it? I guess I won’t. On the other hand last week I saw a signpost that said “still on the right path”.
I went to the fair and met a friend there. The friend has a kid. The kid has some pigs. One of the pigs is “mine”. As I’ve done before, I’ve pre-paid this year’s bacon. The money I paid this spring paid for not only my piglet but a few others, and plenty of feed for them all. The kid raised them all and stands to make a tidy profit. In turn I’ve got bacon waiting for me this fall. I’ve commissioned the creation of a freezer full of bacon.
I’m a patron of the bacon!
At the fair I met my bacon. He looked pretty healthy to me. Just over 200 pounds of him. He snorted at me. I snorted back.
My bacon’s caretaker had some questions about logistics. Did I want my bacon delivered?
So soon? Was the bacon ready?
My bacon looked up at me. Good thing it can’t speak English.
Why not let my bacon mature a little more; fatten up? My bacon’s caretaker, the kid who’d won a ribbon based on her pen full of three pieces of bacon, agreed. The bacon would grow several weeks more. Happy Curmudgeon!
I arranged delivery of my bacon to the butcher for later in the fall. Which butcher? Why the butcher that also does my venison. Venison doesn’t stand around while you discuss logistics. I have to shoot the venison and bring it to the butcher myself. My bacon gets to ride in a trailer, lucky bacon.
I left the fair extra happy. There’s a world of difference between buying food in a grocery store and commissioning two hundred pounds of ribbon winning bacon several months in advance. The world would be a better place if we all got to meet our bacon and say hi to it and talk to it’s caretaker. That way you can decide when and where it will eventually wind up with a side of eggs. (Our farm fresh eggs I might add!)
Life is better when you’ve got a freezer full of bacon in your future. It’s how you know you’re on the right track.
Back in the stone age I had a newspaper route. This was back when it was considered a good thing for youths to work.
One effect of my righteous, underpaid, non-minimum wage, child labor paper route was that I read the paper every morning before school. I learned a lot:
I chalked up #1 to public schools. As a kid, I experienced public schools as warehouses and factories of intellectual mediocrity. (It is as true now as it was then.) “Journalists” sounded exactly like my teachers. It was all there; everything from biased suppositions, to illogical conclusion, to a weak application math. Each day’s paper varied in quality but excellence was rare and thick layers of condescension were constant. I simply assumed “journalists” were the end product of public schools. I’m not sure my opinion has changed.
I chalked up #2 to insecurity. I assumed people who write cannot do. What’s worse, people who can’t do are naturally antagonistic to those that can. The natural breeding ground of socialist thinking is people who can do little and yet think very highly of themselves.
As for #3; “sports journalism” remains a mystery. It bored me then and it bores me now.
Optimistic youth that I was, I assumed that crappy newspapers (like mine) would fold. They would be replaced by superior newspapers.
I was wrong. Either “journalists” are unteachable or their corporate nest is too fouled. Eventually they killed themselves off. The few remaining print outlets are zombies shambling around losing money until they finally collapse.
If I had to point out when their demise was essentially unavoidable I’d call it the presidential election campaign of 2008. That’s when the press quit even pretending to be journalists and became fluffers for whatever party advocated the biggest government (territory currently staked out by the party of D).
They earned themselves the title “legacy media” while newer forms of reporting crushed them. In 2011 I mentioned that Newsweek, a piece of the Washington Times Company, was officially worth $1. It’s demise was essentially “fait accompli“. This is what I wrote:
“The press truly pulled out all the stops for their guy in 2008. I felt dry humped and discarded. I was not alone. The press periodically abandons all pretense of objectivity but this time was different. It bit them on the ass and they’ve lost their shirts. Newsweek claimed we are all socialists now and crashed so hard they were sold for $1. The Washington Post’s profits dropped 50% in one quarter. The New York Times was trading at $48 in 2004 and now it’s trading at $8. There’s nothing new about a biased press (ask Orson Welles) but now is when events have run them down like dogs. Their refusal to adapt is a self inflicted mortal wound.”
So two years later has the Washington Post learned anything? Did they adapt? Of course not. Recently they passed another benchmark and were purchased for $250 million, far less than their supposed value at their apex. Their stock price has reflected their long slow glide path from a Watergate contact high to irrelevancy and the company is grasping at straws:
“As soon as it was announced that The Washington Post would be bought by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, shares rose by 5%. This means that investors trust the abilities of a man with zero experience in running a newspaper more than they trusted the liberal family that owned the paper for four generations.”
Wow, that hurts! Let me repeat that because I like the way it rolls of the tongue.
“…investors trust the abilities of a man with zero experience in running a newspaper more than they trusted the liberal family that owned the paper for four generations.”
Ouch!
The chimps that run the “legacy media” killed their host. I suppose they’ll all get jobs as teachers now.
I have obtained photographic evidence that Pony conventions exist. (In case you thought they were a figment of my fevered imagination.) I blurred the photos because… well mostly because I found the “pixellate” button my my photo software.
I enlisted a team of current and former world leaders to interpret what you’re seeing. Enjoy:
Photo 1: I’m pretty sure that’s not his real hair.
I’m mystificated.
Photo 2: Some sort of commerce.
You didn’t build that.
I’d hit that.
And for a summary of the overall situation I turn it over to our future planetary overlord Vladimir Putin.
Rainbow ponies remind me that my childhood was a sad one.
